The LSE Directory / Trading software
Trading Technologies International, Inc. (TT) is a Chicago-headquartered financial technology company that builds and operates the TT platform, a cloud-hosted (software-as-a-service) system for trading listed derivatives and, more recently, fixed income and foreign exchange. The platform gives professional traders order entry and execution, an order management system (TT OMS, launched October 2018), charting, algorithmic trading tools, transaction cost analysis and trade surveillance, all delivered through a hybrid-cloud architecture that pairs co-located execution servers at exchange data centers with a private cloud for configuration, workspace and audit-trail storage. TT specialises in high-performance execution connectivity to the world's major derivatives exchanges and serves banks, brokers, proprietary trading firms, hedge funds and asset managers rather than retail traders. Its long-standing differentiator is the MD Trader ladder-style order entry screen, a click-to-trade depth-of-market interface the company patented and defended in court; TT also offers ADL (Algo Design Lab), a no-code, drag-and-drop tool for building and deploying custom trading algorithms to its colocated algo servers, and TT Score, a machine-learning surveillance tool for detecting risky trading behavior as part of its compliance suite. Where many rivals stayed single-asset, TT has pushed into fixed income and FX execution management alongside its original futures and options base. The company traces its roots to 1994, when it was founded in Frankfurt, Germany by Gary Kemp, an Andersen Consulting alumnus who had worked on the design of the Eurex electronic futures exchange; Kemp served as TT's first CEO and oversaw the relocation of its headquarters to Chicago in 1996. Harris Brumfield, a former Chicago Board of Trade floor trader, later became a major shareholder and CEO and helped build out its international footprint. X_TRADER was TT's flagship desktop order-entry platform for roughly its first two decades before being succeeded by the current cloud-based TT platform, introduced in March 2015. TT's MD Trader patents were the subject of a long-running infringement suit against eSpeed (a Cantor Fitzgerald unit) over its order-entry software, filed in 2004; a jury awarded TT $3.5 million in damages, later reduced by the court to roughly $2.5 million, the district court granted TT a permanent injunction in May 2008, and the Federal Circuit affirmed the ruling in February 2010. The growth equity firm 7RIDGE acquired TT in December 2021, and in November 2025 Thoma Bravo closed a co-control investment alongside 7RIDGE, backed by an $835 million continuation vehicle and a $450 million senior secured credit facility to fund further growth. Justin Llewellyn-Jones became CEO effective March 31, 2025, succeeding Keith Todd, who moved to Deputy Chairman. TT has continued to add exchange and data connectivity in 2026, including a fixed income execution management system built on ICE market and reference data, and new connectivity to New Zealand's NZX exchange. In July 2026 it was named APAC Capital Markets Tech Supplier of the Year at the Capital Markets Technology Awards APAC, its ninth A-Team Group industry award since 2022, following Best Sell-Side OMS and Best TCA Tool wins earlier in 2026.
